Monday, March 7, 2016

The Working Class Has the Capacity to Transform the World

By Steve Halpern

After
the so-called “Super Tuesday” primary results, the race for President of the
United States will probably be between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.Many so-called liberals who favor the
Democratic Party have been incensed by the Trump campaign.

Clearly,
Donald Trump has spewed vicious hatred against Mexicans, women, Moslems, and
anyone else who might disagree with the Trump point of view.For these reasons, liberals have labeled
Trump supporters as “stupid.”They make
the argument: Why would anyone support the hateful Trump, when people can
support Bernie Sanders who supports the idea of free education and a single
payer health-care system?

Another
question might be asked.Why would
anyone support Trump or Sanders if people are satisfied with the government as
it is now?While President Obama argues
that unemployment has gone down during his presidency, the facts tell a
different story.

The politics of Trump vs. Obama

When
we look at the percentage of the population that has jobs, this percentage has
not changed since Obama has been President.In fact, when we look at these numbers over the past twenty years, the
percentage of people who have jobs has gone down.This is the exact opposite of Obama’s
argument.

We
might look at a few other facts when we compare the politics of Obama to Trump.

·Today one out of about every six people in this
country doesn’t have enough food to eat.Trump calls for lowering wages.Obama
cut the food stamps program by $8.7 billion.

·Most immigrants in this country come from
Mexico.Trump calls for building a wall
to keep Mexicans out.Obama has already
used this wall and has been deporting about 1,000 immigrants every day he has
been in office.

·Trump calls for torturing Moslems and preventing
them from entering the country.Obama
has been at war against nations that have majority Moslem populations.

·Clearly there has been a racist tinge to Trump’s
message.While he calls for keeping
Mexicans out of this country, he refuses to denounce the Ku Klux Klan.However, the number of Black people who are
in prison, parole, or probation are way of proportion to their percentage of
the population.In fact, anyone who
lives in this country has a better chance of going to prison than citizens of
any other nation in the world.President
Obama has done nothing to reverse this trend.

·In the year 2008 there was a near meltdown of
the world capitalist system.While there
were sufficient materials as well as workers to dramatically improve the
standard of living, banks nearly closed their doors as they did in 1929.President Obama used literally trillions of dollars in a so-called plan
called quantitative easing to avert a
capitalist created catastrophe.Literally every aspect of Donald Trump’s campaign has been about making
the government give even more support to corporations.

So what is the basis for the argument that the politics of
Donald Trump are significantly different from the politics of President
Obama?Bernie Sanders says that he will
support Hillary Clinton for President if she wins the Democratic Party
nomination.This means that the Sanders’
campaign was never significantly different from mainstream Democratic Party
politics.

Understanding these facts, we might ask another question.Is there a way for working people to become
involved in politics that can bring about a vastly improved standard of living?

The production costs of commodities

Before I look at this question, I will cite a column that
appeared in the February 29, 2016 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer.The article is by Benjamin Powell, who is an
economics professor at Texas Tech University.The theme of Powell’s column is about how he opposes Donald Trump’s
argument that, “We’re going to get Apple to build their damn computers in this
country instead of other countries.”

In his column, Powell cited a 2005 video showing that half of
the $300 price of an iPod goes to Apple and its distributors in this
country.The other half of that price
goes to various other enterprises that also profit from the sale of the iPod.

In other words, the overwhelming majority of the money spent
for iPods as nothing to do with the cost or distribution of this
commodity.This money is about profit as
well as support of enterprises that have nothing to do with the manufacture and
distribution of Apple products.

This means that when we purchase any commodity, we need to pay
for many so-called services that in no way contribute to the quality of the
goods and services we purchase.I’m
talking about interest payments to banks, insurance policies, advertising,
corporate law firms, as well as sophisticated submarines, aircraft carriers,
and fighter jets.So, while the cost of
producing most commodities goes down because of advances in technology, prices
continue to go up.

So, while there is a massive amount of surplus value created
in the manufacture of commodities, the world capitalist system is in
crisis.Corporations are driven to
increase sales, as well as to cut costs.This state of affairs can only result in a complete collapse of the
economy.This at a time when humanity is
better equipped to eliminate poverty than at any other time in our history.

What political strategy can advance the
interests of all working people?

In any capitalist system profits come before human needs.Every worker has experienced the frustration
of having our work compromised because of the drive for profits.Yet, as I’ve shown, our salaries only reflect
a tiny percentage of what our labor is worth.

Imagine, for a moment, that working people had control over
society.Advances in technology would
mean that we would be able to work fewer hours.When emails eliminate the need for a mail service, postal workers wouldn’t
become unemployed.This could mean that
we would all be able to work fewer hours.

Imagine that all the work we do would have one and only one
goal.That would be to make life better
for everyone who lives in the world.We
have the potential to guarantee everyone the right to a home, food, clothing,
transportation, communication, education, health care, as well as cultural
activities like music, dance, the theater, and art.The resources exist right now for this to
happen.The problem is that profits and
not human needs are the priority.

Imagine that discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or
national origin was a thing of the past.Without the corporate demand for profits, humanity could begin to
advance a better standard of living for literally everyone on the planet.

There are those who believe that these ideas reflect a clearly
impossible dream.They argue that human
beings are naturally greedy and selfish.Understanding the reality we face, the only way for humanity to advance
is through a cooperative struggle against the corporate drive to drive down our
standard of living.

We have a revolutionary heritage

The United States became a nation because of a political
revolution against the British monarchy.The government formed as a result of this revolution was made up of
northern capitalists and slave owners.The slave owners took control of the government and were thrown out of
power by another revolution known as the Civil War.

For over 100 years the first nations of this country known as
Indians waged an armed struggle to defend themselves from the theft of their
land as well as their culture.

After the Civil War the labor movement went on a long and
tenacious battle to improve the standard of living in this country.

Black people have been battling to gain equal rights since the
formation of this country.However,
after the abolition of slavery, the formation of reconstruction governments,
and the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the government has done everything in
its power to reverse these gains.

We need to recall that there were women who went to prison
because they demanded that they have right to vote in demonstrations in front
of the White House.Today, the
government is working to bring back the days when women didn’t have the right
to abortion and lacked the right to decide if and when to become a mother.

Prisoners in California went on a hunger strike in opposition
to solitary confinement.

Immigrant workers have demonstrated all over this country
demanding an end to the vicious government policy that has been deporting 1,000
people every day.

Understanding this history of struggle makes me conclude that
working people have the capacity to transform the world.

For these reasons, I’m supporting the Socialist Workers Party
candidates Alyson Kennedy for President and Osborne Hart for
Vice-President.Members of the SWP have
been doing their best to advance the struggles of working people.Unlike the pro-capitalist media, The Militant newspaper reports on
struggles of workers from around the world.

Last year working people enjoyed a real victory when three of
five Cubans received their freedom from the jails in this country.SWP leaders have interviewed these five Cuban
patriots extensively and published these interviews, as well as their artwork,
in books distributed by Pathfinder Press.

While the Socialist Workers Party is relatively small, the
international working class is very large.Today working people produce all the goods and services we need and
want.Think of how much easier and
rewarding this could be if working people had control over the government as
well as the economy.

About Me

I am the author of the novel "Looking Back From 2101." My novel imagines a future world where poverty and discrimination are no longer a part of the human condition. My blog contains articles and poems that I've written over the years. Many of my poems are biographies of historical figures who I have found to be inspiring.